What's this? A new chapter?

It only took four years but here we are…

Enjoy.


"CLARKE! GET CLARKE!" The frenzied shout rang through the camp.

The girl in question whipped her head up at the urgency of the voice and turned away from the makeshift radio transmitter she and Raven had been constructing to contact the Ark.

Hearing the gasps of the delinquents gathered outside the drop ship, she dropped the tools she was holding and raced outside, just in time to see the gate to the camp swing open and the search party return.

Well… what was left of them…

Sienna led the way, blue eyes blazing with anger in a way that Clarke had never seen before, much less expected the diminutive girl to be capable of. It was who came next though that drew her attention, and she gasped.

"Oh my god…"

With the help of a dirty and bloodied Octavia, Jasper staggered into camp with the groaning figure of Bellamy Blake held in his arms. Stuck deep in his chest was a dagger, one that definitely had not been made from the Drop Ship.

Clarke immediately sprinted over – all thoughts of how she despised him momentarily forgotten – and checked his vital signs. The man was deathly pale, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps and his pulse was weak and rapid. He was in obvious shock and had lost a lot of blood. He was barely alive.

"Can you help him?" Octavia asked frantically.

She could tell straight away that the wound was deep, and if he didn't get help soon, fatal. "I- I don't know! I need my mother!" she stammered in response. "Get him into the Drop Ship, but don't remove the knife!"

Jasper nodded and turned towards the landing craft.

"Clarke, there's still no radio!" Raven commented from her side.

"Then fix it!" Clarke ordered, looking to see who else had returned. Her eyes widened in panic when she saw no sign of Aerrow. Then she saw the last two surviving members of the search party, dragging another figure roughly behind them.

Her heart clenched in fear. No…

But then the man's face came into view, revealing not light skin and long, streaked brown hair, but a heavy set, dark brown face and a fully shaven head. Her eyes widened. A grounder…

That obviously explained where the knife came from, and likely where Octavia had been. But there was no trace of Finn nor Aerrow.

"What- What happened out there?" Desperate for answers, she whipped her head around, her eyes coming to rest on the scowling form of Sienna.

"Bastard was holding Octavia captive." The younger girl growled, "We got her back, but he stabbed Bellamy in the process."

"And Aerrow?"

Sienna's face darkened even further, if that were at all possible. When she spoke, her voice chilled Clarke to her very core. "The grounders found us first… He's the only reason we escaped." She muttered darkly.

Clarke felt a bolt of ice shoot up her spine. "Do you know what happened?" she was almost afraid to ask.

Sienna shook her head, before turning her glare to the unconscious grounder, "He fought them off to give us time to escape." She glowered, "If they haven't killed him… well… That's what we're going to find out. Take 'im upstairs!"

Bellamy's minions – Miller and Sterling – nodded and picked the man back up just as Octavia came back out of the Drop Ship.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded.

Sienna whirled around to face her. "Like I said, getting some answers."

Octavia cocked her head angrily. "Oh you mean revenge?" she accused

"I mean information!" Sienna shot back. "This might be our only chance to find out 'ow many of them there are, and why they've been attacking us! Not to mention what they've done with Aerrow-"

"How would he know? He was with me the whole time!"

"I DON'T CARE!" Octavia was silenced by the sudden, shrill scream from Sienna. The tone shot right through her. It was terrified, desperate, her French accent now noticeably prominent. The blonde's chest heaved rapidly as tears visibly stung her eyes. Wild strands of hair stuck out from the ponytail it had previously been tied in, a reflection of her dishelved mental state.

"Sienna, calm down!" Clarke urged, placing her hands on the girl's shoulders before softening her voice. "I'm worried about Aerrow too, but this…" she nodded at the grounder being dragged inside the drop ship, "… this isn't who we are."

Sienna closed her eyes tightly and looked down for a long, long time. When she looked back up, Clarke was stunned by the look in her eyes. It was one of pure, unrestrained rage.

"It iz now." She growled, roughly shrugging herself out of Clarke's grip and bashing Octavia's shoulder on her way to the drop ship.

She paused at the door and sent a final glare to Clarke. "Don't you 'ave a stab wound to treat?" she asked caustically. She looked skyward, "And while you're at it, get everyone inside and close ze door… a storm's coming."

And with that, she marched inside, uncaring for Bellamy's stricken form. Her face set in stone, she began climbing the ladder where upstairs the captive grounder was being tied up.

As she climbed, she was entirely unaware that in a cave many miles away the same thing was being done to two of her own people.

The first thing he heard, oddly, were the raindrops. The gentle, overhead patter of precipitation. The sounds were hollow, as if they were hitting something soft, but nonetheless they penetrated his ears, rousing him from his former blank state.

The next thing he noticed was how utterly weightless he felt, like his entire body was floating in water, or perhaps space. There was no pain, no feeling, just calm, peaceful serenity-

BOOM

Aerrow sat up rapidly, heaving for air as the first clap of thunder echoed through the sky. He whipped his head around frantically, fighting his rising panic when all he initially saw was darkness.

Forcing himself to control his breathing, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply to calm his racing pulse, before opening his eyes again and waiting for the world around him to come into focus.

When it did, he found himself in a place nothing short of wondrous.

He was in a huge cave, far larger than the one he had found during his exile. In fact, that cave was positively puny compared to this one. Roughly triangular in shape, it must have been easily twenty metres across. More than half of the floor was covered by a shallow, shimmering lake of crystal clear water, illuminated in a ghostly blue by dozens of glow worms lining the roof. The walls and roof were covered in eerie swirls and craters, obviously carved through water erosion.

It wasn't the walls that caught his attention though. It was the orange light of a fire flickering off them, and reality returned ferociously as Aerrow realised the true peril of his predicament.

He remembered everything. The hunt for Octavia, the stand off with Finn, and especially the fight with the grounders. He clenched his teeth as a surge of anger engulfed him. He hadn't been good enough…

That anger was quickly forgotten however, when he remembered that someone else had been good enough to take down the grounders. Images of the figure in black flashed through his mind, how easily they dispatched their opponents, and how ruthlessly they had turned on him afterwards.

Most worrying of all though were the black x's he had seen on the lower half of their face, right before he had passed out. He suddenly became very aware of the sharp throb of the identical mark on his temple, and he knew it was no coincidence that his saviour turned attacker shared the same marks. It was then that he realised his hands were bound behind his back, anchored to a metal stake that must have been hammered into the very rock beneath him. There was little doubt who had done so.

Fear gripped him, his heart clenched in dread at the memories of what had happened the last time he had been tied up and helpless. Desperately, he fought back the vision of Dylan's awful face, Arianna's haunting screams. He couldn't let himself be affected by them if he wanted any chance to escape.

Once he had his breathing somewhat under control, he forced himself to concentrate on the bonds and if there was any way of breaking out of them. With unease settling harshly over him, he turned his head in an attempt to examine his tied hands, only for his eyes to shoot open in shock.

"Finn?" he whispered in disbelief

Much to his surprise, his fellow delinquent had also been captured and was tied up in an identical way. Even in the dull light Aerrow could make out the heavy bruising on his cheek where the grounder had struck him, and the Spacewalker's head lolled lifelessly.

Aerrow's breath caught in his throat for a moment, fearing he had been killed, only to exhale in relief when Finn's chest rose sharply, and he coughed.

"Finn!" Aerrow hissed, trying to rouse him without making too much noise, "Finn!"

The other boy gave no immediate response, so he shuffled around as best he could, stretching out with his foot to jostle him. "Wake up…"

At his shoving, Finn finally blinked himself awake, lifting his head with a groggy groan. He shook his head, eyelids fluttering in an attempt to stave off the fog of sleep. It was when he tried to stretch his arms out though that he realized his predicament, and he shot to attention.

"What the fuck-"

"Shh!" Aerrow hushed, his own eyes nervously tracking the entrance to the cave, but the sound of his voice only served to panic the concussed boy further and he scrambled away, legs drawing up to his chest defensively. "Who's there?"

"It's Aerrow. Calm down!"

Finn tugged at his chains – and Aerrow winced at the harsh clanging – before his companion's voice finally registered and he turned to face him. "Aerrow?"

"Yeah, it's me." Aerrow forced himself to keep his voice neutral, more for Finn's benefit than his own. "Now shut up! We're alone, but won't be for much longer if you can't get a hold of yourself."

The urgency he was feeling must have seeped into his voice because Finn suddenly stilled and looked straight at him – and as their irises locked Aerrow could see the whites of his eyes even in the dim glow of the worms.

Sucking in a sharp breath of air, Finn glanced at Aerrow's shackled hands, then stretched over his shoulder to examine his own before finally scouring the room around him just as Aerrow had done only moments earlier.

"What happened, where are we?" He whispered fearfully.

"I don't know."

"How did we get here?"

"I don't know that either." Aerrow ground out. "What do you remember?"

Finn stilled, forcing himself to take a moment to think. Another brief head shake followed. "We tried fighting the grounders… guess we lost."

"We got our damn asses kicked." Aerrow growled, a touch of lingering anger at that fact slipping into his voice.

"What about the others, did they get away?"

"You're the one that turned back and left them." Aerrow pointed out, "You tell me."

"Fuck… Fuck…" Finn muttered, shaking at his bonds once more. "We've gotta get out of here! Can you reach my chains?"

Aerrow shook his head. "Already tried."

"What about your knife? Do you still have it?"

"Finn-"

"We've got to figure out something!"

"Save it!" Aerrow snapped, silencing him. "There's no getting out of here. Whoever tied us up knew what he was doing. Even bound my thumbs so I can't dislocate them."

Somehow that was the most concerning thing of all. The fact that the mysterious hooded man had so thoroughly restrained him meant he wasn't only supremely capable, he also knew the extent to which Aerrow was capable.

A dark, foreboding silence fell between the two delinquents as thunder continued to boom outside, its intensity increasing as if a parallel to their bleak situation.

Finn swallowed. "So what do we do?"

His voice was quiet. Anxious.

Aerrow bit his lip. When he spoke, his voice was empty and resigned. "We sit and wait. And we say our goodbyes."

"No." Finn shook his head in denial. "If the grounders were going to kill us, they would have done so already."

"Not 'they'." Aerrow murmured grimly. "Him."

Finn frowned. "What?"

Aerrow looked down, deliberately avoiding eye contact. He didn't want Finn to see the fear he knew would be clear and present in his eyes. "After you went down, someone different appeared. Someone worse. He took down the grounders like they were nothing. Nothing. We don't stand a chance."

Finn's feelings about the infamous delinquent were momentarily forgotten as he took in the defeated tone of Aerrow's voice, and he felt a shiver run up his spine. Whoever this mysterious man was, he had Switchblade scared shitless. A brief image of Raven made him force back his own growing terror.

"But we're still alive." He tried, "As long as we're alive, we still have a shot, right?"

Aerrow was silent, his hands clenched in tight fists behind him. He stared resolutely ahead, unblinking, before slowly shaking his head. "I doubt it." He muttered darkly, "If we're alive, it means because he wants something from us."

Finn froze as he finally turned his head to face him. The look on his face was deathly grave.

"How are you with pain?"

Finn felt his chest tighten as another bolt of terror shot through him. "What?"

He watched as a haunted look washed across Aerrow's face and his violet eyes glazed, as if he had suddenly been transported a million miles away to somewhere else. Somewhere painful.

"Whatever he wants from us, he's going to torture us to get it."

Finn's heart seized. "How can you be sure?"

Aerrow's blank stare didn't falter. "Because that's what I'd do…"

Off all the things Clarke had previously envisioned herself doing to Bellamy Blake, saving his life was definitely not one of them.

In fact she'd always thought she'd be putting a knife into him, rather than pulling one out.

And yet here she was, now locked inside the drop ship as the storm outside ravaged its metallic walls. She couldn't help but flinch with every crash of thunder and low groaning surrounding her as the landing craft was buffeted by howling wind and debris.

Bellamy lay prone and thankfully still unconscious on a hastily prepared workbench at her waist while the rest of the delinquents anxiously milled around behind her, casting fleeting glances between their injured leader and the ladder up which the grounder had been taken.

Clarke did her best to push any thoughts of the captive man firmly out of her mind. It would not do her any good to dwell on what might be happening on that upper level, much less what the consequences of such actions would bring. She held out the faintest of hope that things would work out, but she knew such wishes were delusional at best.

The look in Sienna's eyes – the hot and fiery fury she'd seen – unnerved her deeply. It was so similar to what she'd seen from Aerrow in the cave when the three of them were hiding from Murphy (God, had that really only been two days ago?) and she feared that the young blonde had picked up on his more vengeful tendencies.

She could only imagine what Aerrow would do to the captive grounder if their roles were reversed, and she was the one missing. She shuddered at the thought, before wincing at the question of what could have happened to Aerrow. If he was-

No! She snapped herself out of that train of thought before it could develop into blind panic, focusing instead on the task in front of her, on the crackle of the radio as Raven worked to boost the signal to cut through the storm (having stubbornly refused to do anything else to help treat Bellamy), on Octavia's footsteps as the younger Blake paced back and forth anxiously, and on the patchy sound of her mother's voice talking her through the procedure.

Her initial joy at breaking through and making contact had quickly shifted to hurt and outrage on hearing Abby's voice – Wells' untimely revelation on who was to blame for her father's execution still raw. The volatile concoction of conflicting emotions was constantly on the verge of overwhelming her, but she did her best to bury them until later. For now, Bellamy needed as much of her attention as she could muster.

Thankfully, as best she could tell the knife hadn't struck anything critical like a lung or his aorta – he'd have been dead in minutes if either of those things happened. From what she could guess, the blade was not overly long as she'd first feared, nor very wide. The biggest danger she could identify was going to be from infection and sepsis. A cold blade was anything but sterile, and thus needed to be removed as quickly as possible. Tetanus was something they had long since run out of vaccinations for up on the Ark.

"How is he? Is he going to be okay?" Octavia asked over her shoulder.

Clarke felt her hands clench involuntarily against the bench. "I don't know yet. I'm still waiting for my mom to run the simulation." She said tersely, "Just like the last time you asked…"

Octavia let out a frustrated grunt and turned away. "Well is there anything I can do to help in the meantime at least?"

"Unless you want to make things worse then no."

Clarke winced at the involuntary harshness of her own voice. She could practically feel Octavia's glare burning a hole in her neck and so forced herself to turn and face her.

"Octavia I'm sorry-"

"Forget it." Octavia cut her off harshly. "I'm just trying to help. Can't just sit here while Wonder Woman and the idiot squad are doing God knows what up there." She sent a forlorn look up to the roof.

Clarke followed her gaze, then looked back down at the younger girl. She was taken aback by the unspoken plea in her eyes.

"Octavia…" she sighed.

"Aren't you going to do anything?" Octavia accused in response, flaring her arms out to the side in exasperation. "You heard what she said! They're probably torturing him up there!"

"What would you have me do!" Clarke raised her voice in return. "You think any one of them would listen to me? Its him they answer to!" she gestured to Bellamy. "And its not like he would have done anything different! He'd be the first one up there if it were anyone else down here instead."

"That doesn't make it right!" Octavia snapped. "Whatever answers they think they're going to get from him, they won't. He was with me the whole time."

Clarke said nothing, and Octavia scoffed at her derisively. "I thought you were supposed to help people."

Clarke released a heavy sign and dragged the back of her bloodied hand across her brow. She bowed her head and shook it absently as she fought to contain her emotions yet again.

"I'm trying." She murmured through closed eyes and gritted teeth.

"-Larke? Clarke we're ready up here." The radio suddenly crackled back into life, and Clarke returned her focus to Bellamy, but not before giving Octavia one last look of apology.

"One problem at a time, okay." She said dimly.

"Fine, I'll do it myself then." Octavia muttered, grasping the first rung of the ladder and commencing the climb to the upper level.

Sienna watched on grimly, her face set in stone with her arms crossed over her chest as she watched Bellamy's gang haul the captive grounder upright and tie his arms up with spare seatbelt strapping.

"No, not like that." She spat suddenly when she saw Miller attempting to secure the man's right arm with a basic overhand knot. "That has all the security of the guards without their shock batons. The last thing we need is this fuck getting loose because one of you morons screwed up."

Miller whirled around and sneered at her. "Hey who are you calling 'moron'?"

Sienna didn't flinch. "You."

She stepped past the now-gaping boy and hastily redid the bonds, this time looping the webbing over itself twice before threading it back through itself to form a far sturdier clove hitch.

Tugging the knot firmly to make sure it was set, she stepped back and made sure the same was done on the man's other hand. Satisfied, she resumed her cross-armed stance and waited for her prisoner to inevitably wake.

Bellamy's gang loitered behind her, alternating between searching through the grounder's belongings and sending uneasy glances her way, not sure what to make of the diminutive blonde who had so suddenly taken control in Bellamy's absence.

"Where the hell does a little girl learn how to tie someone up?" Sterling muttered to the others, thinking he was out of earshot.

Sienna heard him perfectly well but didn't deign to give him a response.

She just found herself absently reaching for her wrist, faintly grasping invisible lines of phantom pain while the scars on her back pulled uncomfortably tightly.

She bowed her head, her thoughts drifting not for the first time to Aerrow and what had happened to him.

She had no idea how her sudden burst of confidence and authority had emerged, but it could only have been instilled in her by the amethyst-eyed delinquent she'd become increasingly enamored with in a very short period of time.

Though she'd only had all of one day training with him, that had been all it took to break free of her shell and attain a level of self-assurance she'd never previously had. Whether it was the basic self defense and combat skills he'd taught her, or the simple catharsis afforded by finding someone who equally understood some of what she'd experienced, she didn't know, but she was immensely thankful for the newfound presence he had in her life and couldn't bear to think of the possibility of losing him, not when she'd still only just met him.

She'd never forget the sight of him standing tall, brave and unyielding in the face of the encroaching grounder warriors while she and the others ran for their lives. That warmth she got from that feeling of protection burned up inside her chest, only to be swallowed by the yawing chasm of fear and uncertainty that had opened since she'd seen him last.

He had to be alive…

He had to be…

She clung resolutely to the hope that maybe he'd been able to escape in the acid fog… or was maybe taking shelter from the storm and would find his way back to her- No! Them! Find his way back to them when it cleared.

And if the worst had happened… if the grounders had defeated him… the only possibility she allowed herself to think of was that maybe they'd taken him (maybe… maybe…), like they'd taken Jasper and Octavia. Kept him alive like them.

It wasn't the grounders that killed Diggs and Roma. It was the traps…

It was the traps…

She was pulled from her thoughts by an animalistic snarl, accompanied by a frantic rattling of metal as the straps attached to the roof and the floor were suddenly pulled tight.

She snapped her eyes up, focus back on the grounder in front of her who was now struggling against his bonds, eyes wide open and scouring his surrounds rapidly while he hyperventilated in panic.

Her vision narrowed into a glare.

He was awake.

Bellamy's gang quickly gathered around her as they took in the sight of the now-conscious man, and as he calmed himself and rose to his full height they suddenly found themselves very glad they'd listened to Sienna about securing him properly.

Their captive was an imposing figure indeed. He was tall – easily over six foot – and broad to match. Even beneath the tattered shirt he wore, rippling lines of thick, hard muscle were apparent, and angular tattoos emerged to snake their way down each of his arms.

He positively dwarfed all of them, standing even taller than Bellamy would if he were with them and his eyes passed quickly over each of them, scrutinizing them before settling forward in a vacant, impassive gaze.

Sienna herself had to swallow down her sudden and very real fear. Not for the first time, she felt well and truly out of her depth. What the hell did she think she was doing?

The grounder simply exuded danger – in a totally different way to Aerrow, who would have been positively puny next to this man. Aerrow was lean, low and vicious, keeping his skills tightly coiled like a serpent, his lethality disguised by his seemingly demure physique. This man… this man was like a jungle cat, like the one Jasper's rescue party had brought back: Big and mean and predatory.

Shit… if all the grounders they were up against were like this… what chance did they stand?

What chance had Aerrow stood?

The thought of her new mentor helped her push down her fear. He hadn't backed down from the warriors he'd faced. She wasn't going to back down from this one.

Squaring her shoulders, she took a deep breath and moved towards him. Slowly, carefully, one foot in front of another, trying to ascertain what thoughts were going on behind that vacant, dark-eyed stare, what knowledge he had, how she might go about extracting it.

It was at that moment that the trapdoor leading to the lower levels burst open and Octavia hauled herself up into the room. Her green eyes swept across the scene in front of her, and her face twisted with incredulity

"What are you…"

Her words died in her mouth when she saw the tied up grounder. Her eyes locked onto him as she approached slowly, almost entranced, and her face slowly morphed from one of anger, to disbelief.

"I told you!" she snarled, spinning to glare at Sienna. "The whole way back I told you! He didn't attack you, he was protecting me."

Sienna met her glare with an icy, sideways one of her own. "And Aerrow was protecting us, in case you've forgotten." She said lowly. "Or do you not care about that anymore?"

"Of course I care!" Octavia bristled, "But he had nothing to do with whatever happened to Aerrow."

"You don't know that."

"Yes. I do. He was with me the whole time!"

Sienna ground her teeth, her eyes not leaving the grounder. "He must know somezing." She hissed.

"And what would that be?

"Where zey would 'ave taken 'im for one thing." Sienna snapped, before taking several deep breaths to calm herself.

"Someone like him… they wouldn't have just killed him, surely not." She said quietly, almost as if she was trying to convince herself of the fact more so than Octavia, "They would want to know how he got to be the way he is, the extent of our capabilities, our defenses. Anything that could be of use to them."

"And you think Aerrow would tell them that?"

"Truly? I don't know. I wouldn't blame him if he did though, not how after you all treated him in that trial." Sienna glared at the others in the room, who at least had the decency to duck their heads in something resembling shame.

She shook her head at them, scoffed and returned her focus to Octavia. "But I don't think so. He would sooner die than give up any information. Either way, we need to know what this one knows. If he can't tell us where Aerrow would be then maybe we can at least get a better idea of what we're up against."

"And just how exactly do you plan on getting him to talk? I don't even think he speaks English!"

"Or maybe he just wants you to think that?" Sienna told her pointedly, "Did that thought ever cross your mind?"

She turned back to face the grounder. The man was staring right at them, as if to prove her point. He was quick to look away but Sienna didn't miss the sharpness in his eyes that he hadn't been quick enough to school.

Her small fist clenched at her side. "Even if he doesn't, I'll make him understand. One way or another…"

"So what, you're just going to torture him?" Octavia cried, "No. I won't let you-"

She was silenced when, like a viper, Sienna span around and held a dagger against her throat. Octavia froze instantly, both at the disturbingly sharp blade digging into her skin and the confidence with which the blonde wielded it.

Behind them, the grounder jerked at his bonds while the other delinquents hastily got to their feet at the sight of the drawn weapon.

"Hey… whoa… calm down." Sterling urged, "Do you think Bellamy's going to be happy to hear you held his sister at knifepoint?"

"Bellamy iz still unconscious wiz a dagger in 'is chest in case 'is sister has forgotten." Sienna growled back. "Courtesy of zat bastard over zere."

Octavia opened her mouth to reply but was quickly muted once more when Sienna pushed the dagger towards her, forcing her backwards towards the trapdoor. Frozen blue flames burned alight in her narrowed eyes.

"Leave." Sienna said simply, jerking the dagger down towards the ladder. "I won't ask again."

Octavia glared at her mutinously, but reached for the handrail all the same. "Screw you." She scowled. "What do you even think Aerrow would say if he were here."

Sienna faltered, and the dagger in her hand wavered. For a moment, Octavia swore she could see water glistening in the blonde's eyes.

"Aerrow… is why I am doing zis." She whispered.

Not giving Octavia the chance to reply, she steadied herself and turned, walking back towards the grounder.

"Now…" she growled lowly, coming to a stop in front of him. "Tell me where my friend iz."


This chapter was originally going to have more content, but I decided to split in in half to focus on some very important details revealed in the next one, which will be up soon (I promise. Its almost finished, I swear!).

The inconsistencies with Sienna's accent are deliberate. Basically, the stronger her emotions, the stronger her accent. I felt it was somewhat unrealistic how in the show virtually character from the Ark spoke with an American accent, despite the station's multicultural background. I figure maybe canonically it just became the dominant accent overtime as people adjusted to living together and the population increased, however felt that for my story it gave the characters more depth to have little undercurrents suggesting their heritage.

It is also important to note that Aerrow and Sienna are the only two characters described to have these differential accents.